# Chapter 548: Fungus Cave Trap
"I didn't see it after I woke up," Xu Huo said. "There's something wrong with this fog forest."
"No wonder I fell asleep so quickly," Zhuo Wangsun couldn't help but think the worst. "Could Xin Hui have deliberately brought us here?"
He took out his navigator as he spoke. "Could she have tampered with it?"
Xu Huo retrieved a new navigator from the luggage compartment. "Mine is fine."
Zhuo Wangsun was slightly surprised, then said, "You did it on purpose. You've been suspicious of her from the start?"
"She said she wasn't a player from Clown City, but she knew quite a bit about the Cleanup Zone. Just by watching other warriors eat dried fungus, she could match it to the fungi in the river—that's too much of a stretch. Even if she has keen observation skills, caution would dictate not drinking the river water directly, unless she already knew the water was safe," Xu Huo explained.
Zhuo Wangsun thought it over and said, "No wonder she wasn't anxious at all when we told her the truth about the Cleanup Zone, and she still planned to continue the cleanup mission. It seems she already knew the inside story... Could she be a spy sent by Clown City, aiming to eliminate those of us who've discovered the truth?"
Xu Huo couldn't be certain about that, but he had already used the "Friendly Handkerchief" to track her location, so even if she ran ahead, they could catch up.
Following Xin Hui's direction, the two ventured deeper into the fog forest. Humanoid figures still appeared around them from time to time, but whenever they got close, the figures would vanish. They neither blocked nor attacked, and even their tracking seemed half-hearted.
"These people following us isn't good," Zhuo Wangsun said in a low voice. "Haven't you noticed there are more and more of them?"
"They don't seem like living people," Xu Huo said gravely. "They might be props or mutated plants in the fog forest. As long as they don't interfere with us, it's fine."
They had scouted ahead earlier, and even when they threw a branch at them, those figures would quickly move away, showing no offensive capability at all. So the two grew bolder in their movements.
Just as they were about to catch up to Xin Hui, a row of figures suddenly appeared ahead, neither dodging nor avoiding, standing there like ghosts waiting for them. Xu Huo sensed these were different from the previous figures, so he grabbed the kite string in advance and ascended to avoid them, but Zhuo Wangsun couldn't stop in time and crashed straight into them!
Unlike the previous shadows that would disappear, these "people" stood rigidly in place. Zhuo Wangsun hit them with a hollow "clang," then tumbled into a patch of white fungal threads, not making a sound.
The kite string had shot out the moment he rolled down, presumably catching him, but after falling a certain distance, Zhuo Wangsun suddenly stopped in place, and Xu Huo couldn't pull him back up.
The fog was too thick to see anything clearly, so he could only lower a micro-monitor. In the faint light, he saw large hollow pockets beneath the fungal threads, layer upon layer all made of fungus. The edge of the hole Zhuo Wangsun had smashed through hadn't broken either; instead, it stretched like a thin film bag, hanging straight down into the depths below.
The space below was clearly more than ten or twenty meters deep. Zhuo Wangsun was completely wrapped in fungal threads, stuck inside a "fungus bag," and the more he struggled, the tighter he was bound.
Through the gaps in the fungal film, he could also see something like root veins growing underground, covering the back of the film like blood vessels. There were many connection points in between, from which root hairs grew, and those root hairs connected to other films. These crisscrossing suspended films were all interconnected, looking like a massive fungal cave.
Just from seeing that Zhuo Wangsun couldn't even speak, Xu Huo knew the fungal threads were extremely sticky. He lowered his altitude, took out a lighter, and heated one of the humanoid fungal figures standing on the ground. Although the reaction was slow, it wasn't completely unresponsive. So he grabbed several pieces of cloth, lit them, and threw them down.
As the fire spread, the suspended fungal threads immediately retracted in all directions, allowing Zhuo Wangsun to struggle free from the silk cocoon. He grabbed the kite string and actively climbed upward.
The burning cloth below hadn't finished burning yet, falling layer by layer against the fungal film, going dozens of meters deep before the fire went out without reaching the bottom.
"There's actually a fungal cave down here!" Zhuo Wangsun said with lingering fear. "Are you sure Xin Hui came here?"
The direction was definitely correct, but where Xin Hui had gone was unknown.
"There might be a tunnel nearby." They had seen people living in ground crevices before.
"There's no way down from here. Let's search nearby," Zhuo Wangsun said.
Xu Huo confirmed that Xin Hui had gone underground, but along the way, he hadn't found any special markers, so he wasn't sure what path she had taken. They could only search slowly in the vicinity.
During this time, the "human figures" were still tracking them.
Now that they knew these were just a type of fungus, Zhuo Wangsun said, "These figures don't seem to appear randomly; they've been following us all along. Mutated fungi that react to living people—I've never heard of such a thing."
"They're herding us in one direction," Xu Huo said. "Plants also have hunting instincts. Many fungi use rotting animal carcasses as nutrients."
He glanced at the "figures" jumping around nearby and decided to head toward the edge of the fog forest.
No matter what, going deeper would definitely be more dangerous.
"Not looking for Xin Hui anymore?" Zhuo Wangsun asked.
"Finding her is secondary," Xu Huo replied. He was just curious about the secrets Xin Hui carried. "If she wants to continue cleaning up the alien species, she'll have to leave the fog forest. Waiting for her outside is the same."
Zhuo Wangsun nodded.
The two then moved toward the edge of the fog forest. Perhaps because the "luring" had failed, the fungal figures gradually decreased in number. By the time they reached the forest's edge, the figures had disappeared entirely.
With navigators in hand, they planned to continue along the fog forest's edge toward Clown City. But unexpectedly, not long after the fungal figures vanished, the fungal threads on the ground began to writhe. The white filaments twisted like worms, spraying out fine threads on a large scale, quickly covering the grass and turning large swaths of the forest white.
At the same time, a rustling sound rose from the fog forest, like chewing or corrosion, and soon a green mist seeped out from the ground.
Xu Huo quickly left the ground, bringing Zhuo Wangsun with him.
By the time they completely left the forest, the thick fog inside had been replaced by green mist, looking extremely eerie under the night sky.
"No wonder even the alien species wouldn't go in there," Zhuo Wangsun remarked.
Xin Hui had already moved beyond the prop's tracking range. Xu Huo's expression darkened as he turned and walked away. "Let's go ahead and block her."
The two traveled nonstop through the fog forest area, encountering alien species twice along the way. But Xu Huo dealt with them at first sight, not even stopping to waste time. It looked as easy as cutting melons and vegetables, causing Zhuo Wangsun, following behind, to glance at him frequently. Finally, he couldn't help but ask, "Are you really a D-level player?"
(Chapter End)